BRCC joins forces with Sierra Nevada, Oskar Blues to train employees

By Gary GlancyTimes-News correspondent

Published: Monday, December 3, 2012 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Sunday, December 2, 2012 at 9:57 p.m.

Recognizing the arrival of a booming industry, officials at Blue Ridge Community College have been busy partnering with craft beer heavyweights Oskar Blues and Sierra Nevada to meet the employment needs of those and other expanding local companies.

Facts

On tap

Blue Ridge Community College will offer information sessions about its January Craft Beer Academy this week on both the Transylvania and Henderson county campuses.

In Transylvania, the sessions will be held Monday at 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. in the Straus Building, Room 140. In Henderson, they will be Wednesday at 8 a.m., 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. in the Patton Building, Room 150.

The sessions will provide an overview of the academy and the registration process for the courses, including The Fundamentals of Craft Beer, The Business of Craft Beer, The Brewing of Craft Beer and The Oskar Blues Brew School.

Informational handouts will be available following the sessions for those who are unable to attend.

Students must be 21 years or older to enroll in the courses.

BRCC is currently working in a collaborative effort with about a dozen community colleges across the state to create new programs from certificates to associate of applied science degrees in brewing, fermentation and distillation.

The programs will prepare workers for the wide range of anticipated jobs the craft beverage and certain specialty food industries will create, from advanced manufacturing to sales and marketing.

More immediately, however, the college’s Continuing Education program has announced a January launch of its Craft Beer Academy and the Oskar Blues Brew School, a collaborative course with Oskar Blues Brewery in Brevard.

“It’s huge; it’s a big deal, with great opportunity,” Julie Thompson, BRCC’s vice president for economic and workforce development, said of Sierra Nevada’s and Oskar Blues’ respective expansions in Western North Carolina. “We want to help these companies be successful and get the right people. It’s good jobs for our citizens.”

Thompson said response to the academy has been so overwhelming that BRCC will offer information sessions this week on both the Transylvania and Henderson county campuses, to provide an overview of the program and registration process for the courses.

“There’s so much interest in the community,” Thompson said. “We’ve hit a nerve.”

According to the Colorado-based Brewers Association, dollar sales of U.S. craft beer were up 14 percent in the first half of 2012 during a time when overall beer sales were slipping. Breweries are opening at a faster rate today than at any time since Prohibition – with a 125-year high of more than 2,100 – while locally, the East Coast expansions of Sierra Nevada, Oskar Blues and New Belgium have catapulted an already thriving industry to a whole new level.

“It’s such a fast-growing industry,” said Noah Tuttle, head brewer at Oskar Blues’ new Brevard facility, “but the education side of it is not keeping up. So there’s a lot of jobs out there, but the truth is that there are not enough people with experience applying for the jobs needed.”

BRCC officials said they have been meeting extensively with Oskar Blues and Sierra Nevada to identify their needs and work together to provide training for the jobs that will be available.

In August, the college announced it had received a North Carolina Back-to-Work Grant of more than $360,000 from the N.C. Community College System to provide job training and retraining, employability skills and nationally recognized credentials to the long-term unemployed in the areas of automotive, manufacturing, medical records/assistant, information technology and the food/beverage industry, and BRCC targeted some of the money for the Craft Beer Academy.

Students who complete the program will be prepared to sit for two internationally recognized credentials in the beer industry – Cicerone Certification and IBD (Institute of Brewing and Distilling) General Certificate in Brewing. Scholarships, including funding to sit for these third-party credentials, are available for those who qualify.

Initial courses include The Fundamentals of Craft Beer, The Business of Craft Beer and The Brewing of Craft Beer. The fundamentals course will give students a firm foundation in the various types of beer and how they are made, teaches best practices for presentation and serving craft beer and a basic understanding of food pairings, and prepares them to sit for Cicerone certification.

In the business course, students will gain an understanding of the beer industry and key trends shaping the current U.S. beer market as they hear from experienced beer industry professionals including brewers, distributors and retailers.

The brewing course covers the basics of brewing, cellaring, packaging and shipping process, and prepares students to sit for the IBD General Certificate in Brewing.

As for the 16-week Oskar Blues School, students will combine weekly classroom hands-on assignments with on-site brewery experience at the new brewery in Brevard to learn the stages of the brewing process. At the end of the 16-week course, participants will be prepared to take the IBD exam.

Tuttle said Oskar Blues owner Dale Katechis was fully supportive of the idea when Tuttle approached him with it, and that both agreed it would be a win-win for the region, their company and the local craft beer industry overall.

“I think what we’re trying to do here is really implement some practical, hands-on training that would be truly beneficial to a brewery hiring that student,” Tuttle said. “We’re really gearing it toward people who actually want to get jobs in the brewing industry.”

With Oskar Blues busy enough getting its brewery up and running by Dec. 12, the course this spring will be limited to 20 students. However, Tuttle said he envisions an expansion of the program, while Thompson said the same for the academy.

BRCC officials also hope to eventually tie in the academy’s curriculum with that of the statewide collaborative program, to be called the Craft Beverage Institute of the Southeast and launching in the fall pending state and BRCC board approval.

Details of the curriculum for that program are still in the works as college officials continue to work with local industry and determine their needs, said Chris English, BRCC’s dean for applied technology.

English and Thompson were among a small group of BRCC officials who recently visited Sierra Nevada’s facility in Chico, Calif., where English and Thompson said Sierra leaders gave them invaluable advice on the type of training future workers will need. English said Sierra Nevada and other companies the college has been working with agreed that advanced manufacturing is at the core of future employment, and BRCC is studying how to incorporate a curriculum that can fold into existing programs such as the mechatronics program that began this fall.

“So we’re asking (companies) their needs, and, ‘Is this going to be a valuable piece in the community college system?’” English said. “Every one of them, their very first response is, ‘We’ve got to have somebody maintain our automation line … we’ve got to have somebody who can work on this equipment.’”

<p>Recognizing the arrival of a booming industry, officials at Blue Ridge Community College have been busy partnering with craft beer heavyweights Oskar Blues and Sierra Nevada to meet the employment needs of those and other expanding local companies.</p><p>BRCC is currently working in a collaborative effort with about a dozen community colleges across the state to create new programs from certificates to associate of applied science degrees in brewing, fermentation and distillation.</p><p>The programs will prepare workers for the wide range of anticipated jobs the craft beverage and certain specialty food industries will create, from advanced manufacturing to sales and marketing.</p><p>More immediately, however, the college's Continuing Education program has announced a January launch of its Craft Beer Academy and the Oskar Blues Brew School, a collaborative course with Oskar Blues Brewery in Brevard.</p><p>“It's huge; it's a big deal, with great opportunity,” Julie Thompson, BRCC's vice president for economic and workforce development, said of Sierra Nevada's and Oskar Blues' respective expansions in Western North Carolina. “We want to help these companies be successful and get the right people. It's good jobs for our citizens.”</p><p>Thompson said response to the academy has been so overwhelming that BRCC will offer information sessions this week on both the Transylvania and Henderson county campuses, to provide an overview of the program and registration process for the courses.</p><p>“There's so much interest in the community,” Thompson said. “We've hit a nerve.”</p><p>According to the Colorado-based Brewers Association, dollar sales of U.S. craft beer were up 14 percent in the first half of 2012 during a time when overall beer sales were slipping. Breweries are opening at a faster rate today than at any time since Prohibition – with a 125-year high of more than 2,100 – while locally, the East Coast expansions of Sierra Nevada, Oskar Blues and New Belgium have catapulted an already thriving industry to a whole new level.</p><p>“It's such a fast-growing industry,” said Noah Tuttle, head brewer at Oskar Blues' new Brevard facility, “but the education side of it is not keeping up. So there's a lot of jobs out there, but the truth is that there are not enough people with experience applying for the jobs needed.”</p><p>BRCC officials said they have been meeting extensively with Oskar Blues and Sierra Nevada to identify their needs and work together to provide training for the jobs that will be available.</p><p>In August, the college announced it had received a North Carolina Back-to-Work Grant of more than $360,000 from the N.C. Community College System to provide job training and retraining, employability skills and nationally recognized credentials to the long-term unemployed in the areas of automotive, manufacturing, medical records/assistant, information technology and the food/beverage industry, and BRCC targeted some of the money for the Craft Beer Academy.</p><p>Students who complete the program will be prepared to sit for two internationally recognized credentials in the beer industry – Cicerone Certification and IBD (Institute of Brewing and Distilling) General Certificate in Brewing. Scholarships, including funding to sit for these third-party credentials, are available for those who qualify.</p><p>Initial courses include The Fundamentals of Craft Beer, The Business of Craft Beer and The Brewing of Craft Beer. The fundamentals course will give students a firm foundation in the various types of beer and how they are made, teaches best practices for presentation and serving craft beer and a basic understanding of food pairings, and prepares them to sit for Cicerone certification.</p><p>In the business course, students will gain an understanding of the beer industry and key trends shaping the current U.S. beer market as they hear from experienced beer industry professionals including brewers, distributors and retailers.</p><p>The brewing course covers the basics of brewing, cellaring, packaging and shipping process, and prepares students to sit for the IBD General Certificate in Brewing.</p><p>As for the 16-week Oskar Blues School, students will combine weekly classroom hands-on assignments with on-site brewery experience at the new brewery in Brevard to learn the stages of the brewing process. At the end of the 16-week course, participants will be prepared to take the IBD exam.</p><p>Tuttle said Oskar Blues owner Dale Katechis was fully supportive of the idea when Tuttle approached him with it, and that both agreed it would be a win-win for the region, their company and the local craft beer industry overall.</p><p>“I think what we're trying to do here is really implement some practical, hands-on training that would be truly beneficial to a brewery hiring that student,” Tuttle said. “We're really gearing it toward people who actually want to get jobs in the brewing industry.”</p><p>With Oskar Blues busy enough getting its brewery up and running by Dec. 12, the course this spring will be limited to 20 students. However, Tuttle said he envisions an expansion of the program, while Thompson said the same for the academy.</p><p>BRCC officials also hope to eventually tie in the academy's curriculum with that of the statewide collaborative program, to be called the Craft Beverage Institute of the Southeast and launching in the fall pending state and BRCC board approval.</p><p>Details of the curriculum for that program are still in the works as college officials continue to work with local industry and determine their needs, said Chris English, BRCC's dean for applied technology.</p><p>English and Thompson were among a small group of BRCC officials who recently visited Sierra Nevada's facility in Chico, Calif., where English and Thompson said Sierra leaders gave them invaluable advice on the type of training future workers will need. English said Sierra Nevada and other companies the college has been working with agreed that advanced manufacturing is at the core of future employment, and BRCC is studying how to incorporate a curriculum that can fold into existing programs such as the mechatronics program that began this fall.</p><p>“So we're asking (companies) their needs, and, 'Is this going to be a valuable piece in the community college system?'” English said. “Every one of them, their very first response is, 'We've got to have somebody maintain our automation line … we've got to have somebody who can work on this equipment.'”</p>